


At the Price of Oblivion (Obsidian Heart Mix)

by Starcrossedsky



Series: Obsidian Heart Mix [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Shadowbringers Spoilers, ambiguous WoL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 21:37:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20316400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: So many dreams, left for dead in the waterDrowned and gone; just smile and let them goIn the end, you had already made your choice, in the wilds of Gyr Abania.You cannot sacrifice those you can yet save for those you have lost.





	At the Price of Oblivion (Obsidian Heart Mix)

**Author's Note:**

> did you really think you were going to get away without one of these for shadowbringers
> 
> did you.

On and ever on, one foot in front of the other.

(Would Yotsuyu's fate been different, if she had had a path to walk?)

(would the Populares have found their justice, if they had been willing to bear arms for it?)

(You stand face to face with an old enemy once more, and Gaius is just as different from who he was then as you are.)

(You stand face to face with an old enemy once more, and it is not Zenos at all.)

\----

The call comes, and it does not come for you alone. Around you, friends fall into slumber, until you're standing alone.

(**_You're never alone, you know._**)

You have no choice but to follow.

(The voice that calls is one you already know, as always.)

\----

Both lovely and dangerous, is that eternally bright sky. It ripples like an aurora, like a dream of ice, and it births monsters.

(**_Who but a dark knight to bring back the dark of night, eh?_**)

Your friends are here, and you have a job to do, just as you always do, over and over again.

\----

He shifts from darkness into light, your mirror, your fellow warrior of light-cum-darkness. He is so, so lonely.

(**_You know. You _know._ There is no coincidence, that only you can see him, that he appears when you once more need a guiding hand through the world._**)

Where you go, Ardbert follows, for where else would he go?

\----

The Lightwarden falls, and the light flows into you, screaming its pain, screaming the pain of all this world.

And so you become a light in the dark, as the night sky falls once more upon the world.

(_Five times. You need only bear this four times more._)

It isn't until you return to the Crystarium that you stop and realize that you have stopped. That there is not immediate pressure on to the next objective, that you can return somewhere and _rest_ for a time.

Outside your window, the city overcomes its raw awe at the stars, and the celebration begins.

Inside, alone and not-alone, you count your blessings, and rest.

\----

(**_If the pixie is angry at you for not calling for help, then they don't know you very well yet, do they? You never do._**)

\----

Granson is no dark knight, greatsword or no. He could be, if you opened the path to him, showed him the first steps.

You don't. One of you is enough, for any city, any world. There is still a brightness to the bounty hunter that is more than the flame in the abyss, and yours is not a path you would wish on anyone.

He has loved, and lost, and will love again, without needing to dip into that abyss. Someday, in some story that isn't yours. In your story he will be a footnote, at best - 

And yet that footnote is just as important as any other.

\----

Emet-Selch is different from the other Ascians, and not just because the mask he hides behind is a face.

It is different when the people of the First look at you and see _you_, because to them you are only one of a group of strange foreigners, your role in their salvation a carefully guarded secret.

Emet-Selch is of the Source, and your enemy, and yet when he looks at you, you know what he's seeing. You, exactly as you are.

It shouldn't be so unsettling, to be seen, but something in his eye as he finds you wanting makes you wish he was seeing Hydaelyn's champion instead, just like all the rest.

\----

Y'shtola looks at you and at first she does not see you at all.

(She hasn't changed a bit. Have you?)

\----

You cannot help but want to decry the truth that Emet-Selch gives you, like a poisoned gift. You wish to deny it, but you can't.

(Out of the corner of your eye, you watch the girl called Minfilia, and remember the first time you saw those blue eyes. Who but those touched by a god would give up their entire beings for one, simply because She asked?)

(You remember Ysayle, and you remember Minfilia, and you remember how no one but those two spoke of Her like they too had heard her.)

No, Emet-Selch does not lie. You hear his words, and you feel the truth in them.

You sit up late into the new-fallen night, and think about them anyway. About fragmented souls, and how the fact that you are not whole is what has made you _whole_, and you grieve for what he will never understand.

\----

You watch Thancred, and Minfilia, and are reminded. But like Rielle, the girl must learn to stand on her own; you cannot do it for her.

And in the end, you are the one who must take the girl to meet her namesake, to become - whatever it is she will be. 

(**_She must learn to stand on her own, but you will be there if she stumbles. As always._**)

The past cannot stand in the way of the future, and you know it, have always known it. And so you let Minfilia go, to let Minfilia live.

She was always meant to be Ryne.

\----

Branden, now, Branden.

(_**The loss of his position meant nothing to him. He knew still the duty to what was right.**_

_**And losing his flame did not snuff him out.**_)

Branden, knight of darkness, would have made a wonderful dark knight.

\----

Vauthry is pitiful ugly and pitiful beautiful.

(_**Those who walk in the light walk a path of self-deception, no matter where they are.**_)

For his crimes, he deserved more than death; that he is forced to watch his paradise crumble around him before the end brings only the satisfaction of justice served. In his wake, the people of Eulmore will suffer no longer.

In his wake - 

\----

(**_Someone else tires of this charade._**)

\----

You want to be angry at them. At the Exarch, for all of his secrets; at Urianger, for agreeing to keep them, agreeing to play along.

You want to be, but you cannot.

(Love. Love is what it all comes back to, always. What you do, you have done for love.)

What anger you have all falls upon Emet-Selch instead.

(Even though you know, you _know_, that all he has done, he has done for love.)

\----

They do not let you go alone.

Even as the wicked white makes your vision blur and your chest heave, they do not let you go alone, to that city of sorrows.

(If you had let Myste have his way, this is what he would have created.)

They do not let you go alone. But you are never alone.

(_**Just a little further.**_)

The most interesting person in the city is the one who tells you nothing you did not already know.

\----

In the end, you use the light to strike down the darkness.

In the end, you knew, where this was leading, one foot in front of the other.

(_**Over and over again.**_)

In the end, his eyes light up with recognition of a new, old friend.

In the end, for those you can yet save - 

\----

(Justice demands no less.)

\----

(If you meet Myste again, you know that he will have eyes of gold. No one needs to ask you to remember.)

\----

In the end, you are still a good person.


End file.
